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Vox Populi!

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Vox Populi!, “Sucre De Pastèque” (Unlikely Records (1986)/Dark Entries (2025))

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This erratic yet endlessly fascinating group of Parisian iconoclasts has been enjoying a bit of a well-deserved renaissance in recent years, as Spencer Clark’s 2013 reissue of their finest album (1987’s Half Dead Ganja Music) garnered enough interest to warrant several more reissues over the last decade or so. This latest album to be rescued from obscurity celebrates its 40-year-anniversary with a fresh remastering and some cool new cover art. 

Previously only issued on the English Unlikely Records label run by Rimarimba’s Robert Cox, Sucre De Pastèque (Watermelon Sugar) captures the band just before they hit their Half Dead Ganja Music zenith. While no one is likely to hail these sketch-like and improvised-sounding vignettes as another freshly unearthed masterpiece, Sucre De Pastèque is nevertheless quite an endearing album, as there were not a lot of families churning out industrial-damaged and Persian-inspired psychedelic DIY weirdness in their living room in the 1980s. More importantly, Vox Populi! found quite a lot of interesting ways to inventively misuse their primitive electronics.  

Making sense of Vox Populi’s discography has always been a bit of challenge, as their albums have turned up in various unofficial and digital forms over the years with varying track lists and the group has always had a perplexing fondness for giving band members enigmatic pseudonyms as well. The core of the band, however, has always been self-taught multi-instrumentalist Axel Kyrou (credited here as Gnouf Tap), who first founded the project in 1981. 

The line-up expanded significantly in 1984, however, as Axel was joined by his future wife Mithra (or Mitra) Khalatbari-Kyrou and her more conventionally talented brother Arash Khalatbari (his later band Ekova was signed to Sony Classical). Notably, Axel is partly of Palestinian descent and Mithra and Arash are both Iranian émigrés, so Vox Populi’s vision is very much the sound of two very different worlds colliding, as the band always had one foot in the experimental/industrial scene and another in the traditional Middle Eastern music community.

Since these recordings span 1984 to 1986, some of these pieces likely date from the group’s earliest attempts to expand and define their sound. The trio were also regularly joined by a revolving and eclectic cast of friends and collaborators and the most consistent of those was bassist Frances Manne (Fr6 Man, FRG Man) who turns up for this album’s second half and also contributed the new cover art collage. 

On this particular album, Mithra is credited with vocals, acoustic guitar, and flute and Axel is credited with damn near everything else (though Arash contributes some hammered Persian dulcimer on a few tracks). At the risk of sounding reductive, that basically translates as a bunch of Middle Eastern-sounding flutes, horns, and percussion instruments filtered through tape loops and effects to fragmented, hallucinatory, and dub-wise effect, but there are also some occasional synth-derived beats and grooves to be found as well (and, this being the ‘80s and all, some occasional stabs at slap bass and stilted funkiness).

In general, Vox Populi’s best songs tend to be the ones in which Mithra sings, but Sucre De Pastèque is pretty lean on those beyond the hazy and pulsing ritualistic drone of the opening “Yarom Lalou.” Instead, the bulk of the album seems devoted to simply trying out lots of new ideas in sketch-like form with varying results. I am probably most fond of the eerie flute-based pieces like the haunted dreamscape of “Be Mafu” or the lurching and serpentine “Ovan III,” but there are plenty of other charming detours to be found throughout the remaining pieces as well. 

For example, the lumbering and mechanized electro-pop of “Glassy Stare” sounds like a lost minimal wave demo from Ian Curtis enhanced with the playful use of a primitive sampler, while “Atal Matal Toutoule” is an endearingly clunky, primitive, and deconstructed stab at hazed-out ethno-funk a la My Life In The Bush With Ghosts or Fat City (I especially liked how the snare wanders out of phase and the final moments resemble a surprisingly good Two-Tone groove once all the wonkier bits fall away). 

Elsewhere, “Alternative Fresh” has some flashes of left-field brilliance as well, as it fitfully approximates the mutant funk chaos of a prime No Wave band. Those aren’t the only genuine flashes of inspiration, of course, but Sucre De Pastèque is more of an eccentric and transitional time capsule from the golden age of “anything goes” DIY cassette culture than a lost batch of killer singles newly unearthed. 

As such, this is definitely one for those who are already fans of the band rather than the merely curious, as Vox Populi definitely have better and more consistent releases than this one. That said, any serious connoisseurs of ‘80s underground music and home recording weirdos in general will probably appreciate Vox Populi’s singular collision of tape loops, Persian poetry, traditional music, primitive electronics, and ethno-industrial grooves quite a bit, as these Parisians definitely had a vision unlike anyone else before or since.

Listen here.

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Vox Populi!, “Magiques Créations” (Emotional Rescue, 2018)

Ever since their cult favorite Half Dead Ganja Music album was reissued back in 2013, I have been fascinated by this deeply unusual “ethno-industrial” duo from France and have done a decent amount of digging to track down the rest of their back catalog. That has proven to be a somewhat convoluted task, leading to lots of dead blog links as well as a few wonderful unofficial compilations. In fact, several of the best songs on this new digital-only collection have appeared on those unofficial releases, while some others appear to have come from an untitled 1988 tape. 

Curiously, a lot of these experiments spanning 1984 to 1989 are just as good as anything that appeared on Vox Populi!’s formal albums (in some cases, even better), making this kind of a crucial bit of underground industrial archeology on Emotional Rescue’s part. I suppose motivated or frugal listeners can probably find a lot of these songs elsewhere if they put their minds to it, but this is an extremely well-curated collection that provides an excellent introduction to one of the most creative, cool, and underappreciated bands of the ’80s cassette underground.

As with all Vox Populi! releases, the songs compiled on Magiques Creations predominantly feature the core duo of multi-instrumentalist Axel Kyrou and vocalist Mithra Khalatbary, but trying to figure out much beyond that is probably a doomed task (the untitled cassette, for example, credited a third member named FRG MAN and Axel himself appeared as GNOUF TAP). It is probably safe to say several of the usual contributors from this era turned up though, such as Mithra’s percussionist brother Arash and Pacific 231’s Pierre Jolivet. Additionally, it is similarly hard to tell if this is entirely a studio recording, as several VP releases are mixtures of studio and live work. For the most part, however, Magiques Creations at least feels entirely like a studio creation—it is certainly somewhat lo-fi at times, but there are a lot of subtle and hallucinatory effects swirling around the periphery that probably would have been lost in a live setting. 

In any case, the loose thread that ostensibly holds these otherwise unconnected pieces together is that they chronicle the band’s progression towards 1989’s Aither, which Emotion Rescue has previously reissued and regard as a high-water mark of sorts. This collection makes a lot of sense in that context, as there is an increased emphasis on grooves and hooks that was mostly lacking from 1987’s murkier, more atmospheric, and ritualistic-sounding Ganja Music. 

That said, most of these songs still sound a hell of a lot more like Ganja Music than the cleaner and more conventionally poppy Aither. The difference is subtle, but Magiques Creations still sounds like an experimental/industrial project with an unexpected talent for hooks and melody, while Aither sounds like an unusual internationalist pop group with some lingering sharp edges. Also, the palette here is generally still an endearingly primitive one, as the opening “Joue Joue” is just a few wobbly organ chords, a drum machine, a microphone, and some ingenious use of effects and (possibly) tape loops.

I might be imagining this, but I get the strong impression that Kyrou and Khalatbary’s home was kind of a popular gathering place for musicians from many disparate backgrounds and that much of their work from this period came out of loosely structured jams that Kyrou later expanded and enhanced. As a result, there is a pervading sketch-like feel to many of these pieces, which generally unfold as propulsive and vibrant vamps on a single theme rather than compositions with distinct sections or a clear beginning and end. The delightful flipside to that approach, however, is that the best pieces sound spontaneous and fluid. Also, their exotic and slow, hazy grooves provide a fertile group for outré experimentation and bold flashes of creativity. 

That feature is best exemplified by “Ankaboot,” in which roaring engine noises and crunching field recordings fitfully subsume a lazily funky bass and drum machine groove.Khalatbary’s versatile and melodic vocals provide a similarly effective grounding and gravity, alternately imbuing these experiments with playful sensuousness, tender sincerity, or the feeling of a timeless ritual. In album highlight “Tchi Tchi Vox,” for example, Mithra enhances a wonderfully off-kilter and plinking groove with sultry, cooing, and charismatic stream-of-consciousness vocals, yet she sounds like a reverb-swathed traditional Iranian singer in the propulsively throbbing “Jube Man.” 

Elsewhere, as on “Remembering Ancient Flights,” she resembles some kind of ancient priestess, while “Be Modar” feels like a warmly dreamlike lullaby. In a way, Vox Populi! strike a perfect balance with this album: Kyrou is the restlessly innovative ethno-industrial mad scientist and Mithra is the heart and soul. Some pieces are certainly weighted more heavily on one side than others, but that essential harmonious coexistence is always present and makes VP’s art greater than the sum of its parts.

If Magiques Creations has a significant shortcoming, it is merely that it is a grab bag of wonderful ideas that I would have loved to hear explored further. However, consistency and follow-through were not exactly Vox Populi!’s greatest strengths or priorities during this fertile creative period, as they focused instead on tirelessly forging ahead creatively. Consequently, I am delighted that these experiments were documented at all and that someone has taken the time to shine a light on some of the underheard gems that got never got the attention they deserved. 

Vox Populi! has always been an intriguing and unusual project, but this particular era is the one closest to my heart: this is the brief window where they started to become rhythmically inventive and hook-savvy, yet still maintained a primitive and ramshackle DIY charm. Also, while I very much appreciate the spirit and creativity of these obscure recordings, it should also be noted that this is a legitimately and improbably strong batch of varied material (there are saxophone solos!). An occasional song perhaps errs a bit towards filler, but the bulk of these eleven pieces are consistently catchy, inventive, and unusual. 

If an alternate reality existed in which Dead Can Dance and Bryn Jones teamed up to make a soulful bedroom minimal wave-influenced album in the mid ’80s, it would probably sound a lot like this (and I am sure I would like it). I doubt it would be nearly as effortlessly psychedelic, free-wheeling, and loose-limbed as Magiques Creations though. Vox Populi! were not self-consciously pulling other cultures into their art, nor were they particularly drawn towards darkness.Instead, they were just distilling what came naturally into something far more lysergic, beautiful, and unreal. When they got it just right, they sounded like no other band on earth.

Listen here.

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Vox Populi!, “Half Dead Ganja Music” (Cthulhu (1987)/Pacific City Sound Visions (2013))

One of the great tragedies of being an experimental music fan is knowing that there was a mountain of great albums released during the cassette underground’s ’80s heyday that I will probably never hear. Fortunately, this 1987 cassette (originally released on Germany’s Cthulhu Records) has managed to escape obscurity through the efforts of a few great blogs and The Skaters’ Spencer Clark, who has just reissued it on vinyl. 

Vox Populi! are probably best known in the US for their 1989 split with HNAS, but their thoughtfully composed mixture of eerie ambient psychedelia and Persian folk could not be much further from Christoph Heemann’s Dada-inspired lunacy. I am utterly baffled as to how this band has managed to remain such a secret, as they were significantly more compelling and inventive than many of their better-known ’80s contemporaries.

Vox Populi! began as Axel Kyrou’s solo industrial project in the late ’70s, but turned into something quite different after he met Iranian émigré Mithra Khalatbary and her percussionist brother Arash in the early ’80s. Since then, Axel and Mithra have been the core of a very fluid group, approximating a sort of a Parisian ethno-industrial His Name Is Alive: a beguiling mixture of weird experimentation, eccentric stylistic detours, and sublime beauty delivered by a revolving cast of characters.

In fact, VP’s line-up even varies over the course of this album, as the first half is devoted to Mithra and Axel’s studio recordings (with a little help from Arash and Pacific 231), while the second half is culled from a series of live performances with Francis Manne. I am not normally a fan of live albums at all, but this one is a pleasant exception, as the live material is virtually indistinguishable from the studio material. Also, these eleven pieces somehow cohere into quite a surreal and coherent whole that is generally considered to be one of VP’s best releases by fans (and tentatively by me as well, though I have yet to fully absorb their three-decade discography).

Curiously, the 11 songs on Half Dead Ganja Music are all fairly brief, with only one clocking in at over 4 minutes. For the most part, that was a great move, as it means that Axel’s more bizarre experimental pieces end before they start to seem indulgent. However, that brevity is a little exasperating for the lush and dream-like drone pieces like “Schmacht” and “Gole Mariam,” as they end before I am able become fully immersed in them. 

I suspect that sketch-like aesthetic was probably intentional, as drifting from one strange interlude to another is a large part of what makes this album such a unique and appealingly hallucinatory experience, but it would have been nice if Mithra and Axel had allowed themselves time to stretch out a bit when they hit upon something particularly beautiful or striking. Fortunately, they hit upon such moments with surprising regularity—it seems like they had more than an album’s worth of great ideas, but condensed them into a single album anyway.

The album’s clear highlight is “Fassle,” recorded during a 1987 performance in Ravensburg, Germany (absolutely no one rocks Upper Swabia like VP). Built upon little more than an eerie, pulsing synth pattern and Mithra’s melancholy, sacred-sounding vocals, it encapsulates everything that is great about Vox Populi! in just 3 minutes: strong, yet understated melodic sense; haunted-sounding, otherworldly beauty; uncluttered simplicity; and something that sounds a lot like heavily processed (and vaguely menacing) recordings of some ducks. “Golnessar” also reaches similar heights with similar components, combining a dense, queasily shimmering drone with more ethereal vocalizing and primal animal squawks. As for low points, they basically do not exist: while some pieces are certainly more melodic and composed than others, the whole album is essentially a well-orchestrated and appropriately phantasmagoric mind-fuck.

My sole critiques are both quite minor ones. The first is that there is not much in the way of development within individual songs, as each piece is basically just a single theme that starts, continues for a few minutes, then ends. However, that same charge could easily be leveled against nearly every great post-industrial band of the period and Vox Populi!’s themes are much better and more effectively realized than most. My other quibble is just that the sequencing could have been a bit better, as the closing abstract trilogy of “Taghmanantes/Gin Gina/Un Jour” feels like a bit of a meandering anticlimax after the brilliance of “Fassle.” However, for an album culled from a mix of studio recordings and three separate live performances, Ganja Music is still sequenced remarkably effectively.

If it gets heard, this album should go a long way towards belatedly establishing Vox Populi! as one of the best and most original bands to emerge from the shadowy post-industrial cassette milieu of the ’80s, which is great, since they are still active and around to appreciate it. In fact, it is very easy to imagine an alternate reality where Vox Populi! got signed to 4AD and became huge, as some of Ganja Music‘s best moments sound like a more experimental, industrial-damaged This Mortal Coil or Dead Can Dance (perhaps they should have considered doing some Big Star covers to grab Ivo’s attention). Happily, there are some rumblings of a possible Vinyl-on-Demand retrospective in the future, but this is as excellent an introduction to Axel and Mithra’s aesthetic as anyone could hope for.

Listen here.